Slate Writing
The topic most conclusively investigated was "slate writing," in which the medium has two slates fastened together, so that the writing surfaces faced each other, out of reach of the medium, with a small piece of pencil between the two slates. The medium holds the slates in her lap, and spirits purportedly write on the slates, sending the pencil outside the slates when finished. The Commission investigated Mrs. S.E. Patterson and Dr. Henry Slade, both widely respected practitioners of slate writing. Mrs. Patterson proved unable to perform when under the scrutiny of the Commission, while Dr. Slade was found to be practicing fraud: either composing long, well-written messages before the séance, or loosening the screws holding the slates together and scrawling nearly illegible messages while holding the slates in his lap. The Commission also requested that a "professional juggler" attempt slate writing, and found that he was able to provide demonstrations "much more remarkable" than the "puerile" attempts at fraud by Dr. Slade. The Commission concluded that slate writing
"is performed in a manner so closely resembling fraud as to be indistinguishable from it. It would be a mere matter of opinion that all Independent Slate Writing is fraudulent; what is not a matter of opinion is the conviction, which we have unanimously reached as a Commission, of its non-spiritual character in every instance that has come before us."
Read more about this topic: Seybert Commission
Famous quotes containing the word writing:
“I am writing to resist the view that Europe and civilization are going to Hell. If I am being “crucified for an idea”Mthat is, the coherent idea around which my muddles accumulated—it is probably the idea that European culture ought to survive, that the best qualities of it ought to survive along with whatever cultures, in whatever universality. Against the propaganda of terror and the propaganda of luxury, have you a nice simple answer?”
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